Name: Madeline Stewart
From: Bradenton, Florida
Votes: 1
Spend
a Minute to Save a Life
Our
teenage years are a whirlwind period of our lives, where four years
pass by in the blink of an eye and we’re shot into adulthood
feeling like hatchlings. In this time, we experience puberty, tough
classes, and responsibilities before we reach the pinnacle of our
teenage era: driving. In our fast-paced lives, we take time to put
driving into stride as both a paradise and escape from our home
bounds, but we also never spend that extra moment educated ourselves
about the crucial safety that must be implemented with driving. This
unspent time is costly.
One
of the most common phrases among teenagers is “I don’t have
time”, whether it’s about school or housework, teenagers tend to
push off responsibilities until the last moment. It comes as no
surprise that this is done with drivers ed as well. As
teenagers, we skim over the driving manual because it “takes too
much time”, and we ignore any lesson that takes longer than a few
seconds to teach. It’s never that we don’t care about driving or
its safety, it’s simply because teenagers live under the mirage of
limited time, and view drivers ed as a least of our priorities.
However, that extra minute to learn about stopping distances, that
extra second to learn about safety, and that extra moment to learn
about the dangers of distractions makes all the difference. Taking
the time to become an educated driver takes the whirlwind panic out
of hydroplaning, the breath-taking anxiety of heavy traffic, and the
logic out of foolish actions such as texting and driving. To reduce
the fatalities caused by car-accidents, we have to start with
ourselves, the driver. We have to take the time to educate ourselves
about driving and to actively think through our decisions on the
road. Despite everything in our bodies saying there isn’t enough
time, we always have the time to learn to drive safely. No matter how
late we are to work or to school, any time saved by driving
dangerously isn’t worth the cost of a life.
Even
among my family, I have seen safety being disregarded for the sake of
saving time. Once, when we late to an appointment across town, my
father explicitly drove through a red light whilst speeding so we
could avoid waiting an extra two minutes for the light to change.
Thankfully nothing happened, but had a car been moving through the
intersection while my father was driving dangerously, an accident
could’ve cost someone’s life.
Being
a safer and educated driver means taking time, so I will take the
time to avoid distractions, and to follow the law as it is written. I
will take the time to warn my friends about the dangers of distracted
or uneducated driving, and I will take the time to educate myself
about safety in every scenario. I will take the time to learn,
because spending that time could save a life.
